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The 'Elohim and Ancient Near Eastern Tradition

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The 'Elohim and Ancient Near Eastern Tradition 459 Asherah and El: Founding Canaanite deities permeating the Old Testament (Gray, Willis). Asherah, the Semitic name of the Great Goddess, whose origin differs from Astarte, was “in wisdom the Mistress of the Gods”, called by the Sumerians Ashnan “the strength of all things”, a “kindly and beautiful maiden.” The Canaanites called her “She who gives birth to the Gods” and as the “Lady who traverses the Sea” she is Goddess of both the Sea and Moon (Walker 66). In the Old Testament she is identified with her sacred groves. Horned El is like- wise the beneficent “Ancient of Days” founding progenitor God castrated by warlike Ba’al. The ‘Elohim and Ancient Near Eastern Tradition The ‘Elohim and the Blessing of Jacob Before the time of the Exodus, the deities were worshipped collectively as the Elo- him, the many forms of ‘deity’. El meaning simply ‘god’ is also identifiable with the kind old grandfather god of Canaan, who is horned like the Moon God Sin but expresses also the primal male fertility characteristics of ithyphallic gods Nabu and Hermes. As heavenly scribe, these are both also bearers of the covenant. El's many forms include El-shaddai - Almighty, the Lord of the Mountains; Bethel ‘the house of god’ is mentioned in Jeremiah 48:13 as a god. Baityl, like El is one of the four founding Canaanite deities (Kraeling 88); El-Elyon - god the most high. El is the oldest of the Canaanite Gods. He had two wives whom he met over the sea, Athirat (Asherah) and Anath. He is the ‘ancient of days’ the archetype of the wooly-headed beneficent patriarch of Daniel. Later he is emasculated by the verdant warrior fertil- ity God Ba’al and Athirat’s children are destroyed by Anath as Ba’al’s consort. The Elohim included two forms of the Goddess as shown in the blessing of Jacob of the twelve tribes (Gen 49), probably the oldest passage in the Bible (Freedman 1987 322). This specifically blesses Joseph Emphasis on the eternal is characteris- tic of the moon deity of immortality. “Even by the god of thy father who shall help thee, and by the Almighty (El -shaddai), who shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven above (Sin astral deity), blessings of the deep that lies under (primal chaos Tiamat Leviathan), blessings of the breast and womb (Asherah - the creatrix of living things) prevailing from the everlasting mountains to the eternal hills. 460 Alillat Ibrahim Many components of Genesis mythology, including Eden (p 731), Tree of Life, the flood, are sourced in Sumeria. Sumeria has its own flood myth and there are relics of a major flood early in Ur's history. The “ram in the thicket” is also a motif found at Ur as well as the ‘golden calf’ whose horns symbolize the moon back to Pale- olithic times (Woolley 1954 3). Genesis 11:31-12:2 states that Abraham originated from Ur and journeyed with his father Terah to Harran, setting out for Canaan only after Terah died. Ur is near the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, Harran is in Southern Turkey, the northern limit of the valley of Mesopotamia, suggesting this journey was a meaningful one related to the common Moon God of the two centres, Nannar or Sin. Nannar lived in harmony with his Moon Goddess consort Ningal. Libations were offered before them to the Tree of Life (Woolley). Many of Abra- ham’s relatives and ancestors lived in the vicinity of Harran. Several key names in Abraham's family, Terah (compare Yerah Moon God of Canaan), Laban (p 482), Sarah and Milcah are all derived from worship of the Moon Deity (Bright 80, 91). Yerah or Yarikh, temple at Hazor (Gray), is known for his avid courtship of Nikkal- and-Ib ‘great lady and clear/bright/fruit’ (Ningal) and his marriage ceremony to her. Left: Golden Calf at the head of a lyre from Ur Right: The “ram in the thicket” Ur (right Woolley 1954). “And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son ... but an angel of the Lord said you have shown your fear God ... and Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw a ram behind him caught in the thicket ... and offered him up in stead of his son.” Gen 22:10 (Empoli, Uffizi). The deification of Ab-ram, which in the earliest documents is a synonym for Ab-Sin (Briffault 3:108) is consistent with the ancestor worship associated with the Moon God in Aramaic cultures in which rites were regularly held to worship ancestors in cities stretching from Mari to Canaan. The Alillat Ibrahim, or religion of Abraham, was widespread among Semitic peoples. He was worshipped at the Ka'aba (Brif- fault v3 108). A tradition reported by Eutychius runs as follows: “At the time of Abraham there reigned Shabib (Sheba), the wife of Sinn, priestess of the mountain, who built Nisib and Edessa and surrounded them with walls. She founded also the sanctuary of Har- ran, and made an idol of gold, called Sinn.” Al-Kindi reports in the tenth century 461 that Abraham lived with his people 90 years in the land of Harran, worshipping a deity famous in the land and adored by the men of Harran under the name of the moon (Briffault 3:108). Al-Kindy claimed this was al-Uzza, but in Harran, Sin was supreme, although the moon did became female as al-Uzza in much later times. The pattern of the two venus wives of the moon pervades the patriarchs and contin- ues through Jewish and Canaanite history. Abraham had two wives, Sarah and Hagar who departed. Jacob also had Rachel and Leah. El courted two goddesses of the sea by roasting a bird for them, presumably Athirat and Anat. Yahweh was wor- shipped at Elephantine with two wives, (Briffault v3 82) apparently the same two goddesses (Kraeling 88). Adam was the husband of both Eve and Lilith, two partic- ularly challenging women. Moses was known both for the Cushite princess Tharbis (Silver 76) and Zipporah the Midianite. Much later, we find Jesus in a similar posi- tion regarding Mary and Martha. His crucifixion is celebrated at the full moon. Ur-Nammu of Ur offers libations to the Tree of Life before Nannar and Ningal (Woolley 1954) Harran continued to play a central role in the lives of the patriarchs. Jacob returned to Haran and spent fourteen years there (seven for each wife). He gained the name Isra-El (struggles with god) while at Harran, resulting in him becoming a lamed king (Gen 32:25). The twelve sons of Jacob who represent the ‘amph- ictyony’ - the confederation of twelve tribes are lunar and astral in origin, representing the twelve months or zodiacal signs, in a rotating stewardship of the sacred sanctuary. This is paralleled in Greece (Gottwald 376). Meeting and probably officiating in rotation at the tabernacle is consistent with the astral worship noted among Semitic nomads starting from the time of Hammurabi around 1750 BC, promulgator of written law (Briffault 3/85). Harran was renowed throughoutout the ancient world as a centre of occult learning. It integrated Egyptian, Greek and Babylonian spirituality into the Hermetic inner teaching of Hermes trismegistus - of the past, present and future. Harran’s astral worship including the mysteries of the north continued right into the Islamic era as Qur’anic hanif or sabians - ‘people of the book’, ending only with the Mongol inva- sions and contributed both to gnosticism and to the traditions of the Imams. The Mandaeans, John the Baptists followers are believed to have sojourned there. Aramaean King surmounted by lunar crest (Oxford Bible). Deut 26:5 “A wandering Ara- maean was my father [Jacob]” At Mari, ancestor worship was commonly performed through the Moon God in a kispum cer- emony. “At the new moon and full moon I regularly placed before him his pure bread and precious water. Sin release them [the ghosts of the ances- 462 tors] to eat their bread and drink their water.” (Malamat 24) Responsibility for dead ancestors fell on the guardian of heir, who would receive the father's deities. Con- versely, by stealing her father's gods, Rachel was stealing Laban's inheritance. A kispum-like ceremony is mentioned in 1 Samuel 20:18 “Then Jonathan said to David, Tomorrow is the new moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty [at the king's table]. And when thou hast stayed three days, then thou shalt go down quickly, and come to the place where thou didst hide thyself” which lin- gers to this day in Israeli folklore. In Isaiah 8:19 we also read “should not a people seek unto their God (ancestral spirits)? for the living to the dead?” It was common practice in Israel and Phoenicia to lament for the dead with cuttings of hair (p 186). Many of the names of the early tribal deities indicate a close link between ancestor worship and the deity, in which the god becomes patron of the clan deified in the person of the ancestor. We thus have the Mighty One of Jacob and in Gen 31 when Laban pursues Jacob, each swear by their gods, Jacob by the God of Abraham by the fear of his father Isaac and Laban by the God of Nahor. At Mari, in the first quarter of the second millennium BC, a social continuum devel- oped between the city duellers and the nomads in the outerlying areas. The Ben- jaminites were a tribe noted at Mari which had specific associations with Harran.
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